


quit telling everyone i'm dead!

by DrPickle



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (if bad ghost puns count as humor), Character Turned Into a Ghost, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, I'll add both more character and other tags as I go, Kinda, and yes shimizu is a third year, author's entire knowledge of volleyball comes from watching haikyuu, if it sounds like a character is trying really hard not to swear it's because the author is a wuss, no beta! i spit things straight out my fingers and that's how they stay, petition to make that tag a thing, she and the rest of the gang are coming so worry not, the angst is not heavy but it's there a bit, this author loves the third years and will not hesitate to cry about it, title is a work in progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28059561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrPickle/pseuds/DrPickle
Summary: Koushi Sugawara is a ghost. No, he is not sure how this happened. No, he doesn't know how to undo it. Yes, he's going to try his darnedest. After all, his family and his team are waiting for him to come back, even though he never left.(plus, it can't be helped, he IS a volleyball idiot, and you can't hit a volleyball if you can't touch it, which ghosts can't do. So.)
Relationships: Azumane Asahi & Sawamura Daichi & Shimizu Kiyoko & Sugawara Koushi, Azumane Asahi & Sawamura Daichi & Sugawara Koushi, Azumane Asahi & Sugawara Koushi, Sawamura Daichi & Sugawara Koushi, Sugawara Koushi & Karasuno Volleyball Club
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

When Koushi Sugawara awoke, he was suffocating.

It was dark: impossibly, supernaturally dark, and he was suffocating.

He was also hyperventilating, which was kind of the opposite of suffocating, but that didn’t change the fact that his entire body was under some kind of pressure from all sides, on his limbs and the inside of his mouth and his lungs and in his head, and he couldn’t feel solid ground, and gravity refused to kick in and let him know which way was up, and it was so, so dark, and he couldn’t breathe and where _was_ he and _why couldn’t he find a way out_ and-

In desperation, he reached out ahead of him and was rewarded with the staticky pressure on his hand subsiding. 

He clawed his way forward. There was still nothing solid anywhere, but he was moving. He was inside something and there was a way out. Clinging to this discovery, he scrambled out of the darkness into a sitting position, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the early November sunlight streaming through his window.

Suga was in his bed.

Literally.

Like, he had been inside it.

And now he was on top of it instead.

He closed his eyes, trying to make sense of what had just happened. 

It had been a nightmare, of course. He hadn’t actually been inside his bed. He must have gotten tangled up in the covers and had a nightmare about drowning. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened to someone he knew; heck, it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened to him. The sun was up. He was breathing. He could hear his mom shutting drawers and clanking utensils in the kitchen. It was Sunday morning, and he was going to do absolutely nothing today for once.

Then why did everything still feel so numb?

Opening his eyes, Suga looked down at himself. He seemed normal, only he was still wearing his gym clothes and Karasuno jacket from yesterday.

And his shoes. 

In bed.

Gross.

Making a mental note to himself to change his sheets later, he took off his shoes, got out of bed, and headed downstairs in his socks to leave his shoes in the genkan by the front door. Hopefully his mom hadn’t noticed.

Why hadn’t he changed last night?

Actually, come to think of it, he hadn’t showered last night. Or eaten dinner last night. And most concerningly, he hadn’t come home last night. All of which were very uncharacteristic of him.

He set down his shoes and headed towards the kitchen, genuinely worried now. He definitely remembered being at volleyball practice yesterday afternoon, so he started from there and tried to remember what happened afterwards. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like the memories were gone, but it was like they were a misplaced schoolbag he set down while running around trying to get ready in the morning. He was sure they were there, somewhere, right on the tip of his brain, but it was going to take some retracing steps to get to them.

Maybe some coffee and breakfast would help clear his head.

Sugawara’s mom was in the kitchen making omurice, a special weekend treat instead of the usual leftovers or whatever was in the fridge. He hadn't seen his dad or his little brother Takao yet, so he figured they were sleeping in.

Suga gave his best sunshiny smile. “Morning, mom!”

She didn’t respond.

That was as unlike her as it was unlike Suga to sleep with his shoes on. At least he wasn’t the only one acting weird.

He tried again. “It smells great! Do you want any help?”

“Agh!” replied his mother, still refusing to turn around.

“Mom?”

“Cut my finger,” she mumbled to herself, grabbing a kitchen towel and applying pressure to her hand.

“I’ll get a band-aid,” Suga offered, starting towards the door, but his mom brushed right past him. He got a good look at her face. Her eyebrows were furrowed, as one might expect from someone who’d just cut their finger, but she didn’t seem angry, or he would know. There was no mistaking when his mom was angry. He’d even go so far as to say she was scarier than Daichi. Extra years of parenting experience would do that to someone, he supposed.

Maybe he would start putting away the vegetables while he waited for her to get back. He reached for an onion-

-and didn’t grab it.

Suga’s eyes widened, and he tried again.

His hand went right through.

He tried again to grab the phantom onion, and then the pepper, then the knife. None of it worked. Experimentally, he thrust his arm towards the cabinet, and it went right through. Same with the countertop and the faucet. Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, he eyed the gas stovetop, which was turned on. Maybe it was stupid, but slowly, carefully, wincing in anticipation, he reached out towards the flame and touched it.

Other than the vague cold, staticky sensation that came with “touching” the other things, he felt nothing.

He waved his hand through it a few times in fascination.

“I’m… a ghost.” The realization should have been shocking, but he felt strangely calm and detached as he voiced it. Everything fit too well. Suga didn’t consider himself a superstitious person, but he was certainly open to the supernatural, and the possibility had been in the back of his head all along. Part of him still didn’t want to believe it, because _how_ and _why_. It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t remember dying. Was he dead? He hoped not, but that’s how ghosts usually work, right?

His train of thought was broken by his mom returning to the kitchen, finger bandaged and phone to her ear. “...Daichi-kun?” she said brightly. “Hi, it’s Sugawara-san again. Sorry to bother you so early on a Sunday morning- oh crap, I left the stove on... Ah yes, it’s about Koushi! You haven’t heard from him yet, have you?”

Suga’s mom went quiet for a minute, humming a couple times in response to something Daichi said on the other side.

“All right. Thank you, I really appreciate it. I know you don’t have to be told, but please, _please_ call me as soon as you can if you or any of his friends hears anything or thinks of anything that might help… Okay. Thanks again, bye.”

Her voice cracked a little on the last word although she was clearly trying to control it. While on the phone, she’d kept up a smile and an expertly crafted customer service voice, but as soon as she hung up, her whole demeanor changed. She set the phone down gently and braced her hands against the countertop. She let out a deep sigh, and Suga watched as the tears began to roll down her face. 

“Oh, mom. I’m so sorry. I don’t know-” Suga choked up. He’d forgotten, or rather, hadn’t had time to consider yet how this would affect others, but he still felt horrible. Watching his mom cry made him want to cry. He would have, had he been able. But he was making a new discovery. 

Ghosts can’t cry.

Suga hadn’t appreciated the release that tears afforded. He knew, of course. He cried whenever it was necessary, which wasn’t too often, but still. His best friend in middle school had moved away before their third year. A teacher gave him a bad grade on a well written essay because she didn’t like the topic, despite approving it. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t cried a little in frustration when Kageyama became the team’s default setter. But he’d never been properly grateful for the catharsis that came from physically expelling tears from your eyes.

With that route blocked, Suga could feel his emotions building up inside his chest. It hurt. He was finally coming around to the fact that he currently didn’t have a physical body, but it still hurt in a very real and physical way. Choking out a couple more dry sobs, he pressed down everything as best he could and placed his hand on his mom’s, pretending it was resting there instead of floating.

“I’ll figure this out. I love you, mom. Please don’t cry about me.”

His mom appeared to have heard him, although she was probably just adopting the same strategy of grinning and bearing it. She and her son had always been similar in that way. Taking another deep breath, she moved her hand from underneath Suga’s, rubbing it with her other hand. She straightened, wiping her eyes on the towel, and went back to preparing breakfast.

_I’ll figure this out._

Suga couldn’t interact with anyone or anything, but his brain was still perfectly intact and he intended to use it. He wasn’t going to let things stay this way, and he wasn’t going to waste time moping until he had no other options, which wouldn’t happen. There would always be another option.

With that in mind, he went back to his room to do some thinking. If he was going to do anything, first he needed to figure out what happened last night, and then he needed to know exactly what he was capable of. Gingerly, he sat on his bed again. He didn’t fall through this time. He started by examining his body. His limbs and clothing looked solid enough, and when he touched his arm his hand didn’t pass through. That was a good start.

Next, he looked down at his feet, and sighed in annoyance.

He was wearing his shoes again, for some reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having trouble finding gen fics about Haikyuu characters getting ghosted, so here we go. There's so much potential for weird ghost power antics and how characters respond to one of them being gone, it's such a good trope. I love it. Hopefully I can do it justice. Because I enjoy superpower antics of any type, this is probably going to get a little siller. The first chapter turned out sadder than I meant it to, but since Suga is currently assumed missing and not dead, most of the Karasuno boys will probably take a couple days before they really start to worry, and Suga's only time limit (right now anyway) is not wanting anyone else to worry any longer than possible, so there's room for goofing around.


	2. Chapter 2

It was midafternoon, and Sugawara had been experimenting the whole day. No one had bothered to come into his room, which was reassuring, in a way. It wasn’t like he distrusted his family or had ever really thought about it, but it still was nice to know they weren’t in the habit of poking through his stuff while he was gone. Once, Takao had stuck his head through the open door to look around, as if he hoped Suga would jump out from behind a piece of furniture as a joke (a reasonable expectation under normal circumstances), and Suga had tried to smile and wave, but of course nothing happened, and Takao went off looking dejected.

Suga really wished he could hold a pencil, but multiple tries had shown that was about as likely as holding an onion had turned out to be. So for now, he had a running list of questions and answers in his head.

1\. What happened this morning?

_I fell through my bed and was floating inside the mattress for some reason. Make a note not to pass through things with my whole body, it’s really uncomfortable._

2\. What happened last night?

_Still working on that one. I remember walking home part of the way with Daichi and Asahi as usual. Whatever happened happened while I was walking home after we split up. I have these creepy images of the woods near my house, and maybe something about light? I have no idea if it means anything, though.  
_

3\. What can I do?

This was the big one. Suga had done his best to remember everything he could about ghost stories and legends and to try those things out himself, with more success than he’d initially expected.

_I_ _t seems like I can sit or stand on things if I want to (like my bed or the floor), although it doesn’t do anything to them. My bed is still mostly made, like I left it yesterday. I can fly up above the treetops (which is great), but not higher. It takes effort, like phasing through things. I'm not sure how I got into my bed without trying. I can’t move any faster than I can ordinarily run. I can walk through walls, although like I said it’s really uncomfortable. Whenever a part of me passes through something, it feels like static. It’s cold, too._

_That also seems like it’s the only thing I can feel._

He wasn’t going to dwell on that one for too long.

_I can’t feel my heartbeat, I don’t think I can cry (although I haven’t really tried), and I haven’t been hungry or thirsty or had to pee all day, which is nice. My mouth doesn’t feel dry, but I don’t think there’s spit in there, either. I can hold my breath indefinitely. I’m not looking inside my body any further than that._

The next thing on Suga’s list after investigating the general properties of his ghost form had been exactly how much of the world he could affect. He could pretend to grab his desk lamp, for instance, and there would be resistance just like when he sat on his bed, but as soon as he tried to exert enough force to move it, his hand would pass through. He’d spent a good part of the day touching things around the house.

_The only things that seem to react to me are electronics. If I stand near the lights, they flicker, and if I touch them, they go out. If I stand near the TV or my laptop, the screen gets all weird, and if I touch them, the screens go to static. I would test it on my phone, too, but I have no idea where that is. My schoolbag is also gone._

_...People react, too._

He felt silly for not realizing it earlier, but it seemed his mind had needed a bit to wake up and put the pieces together. His mom had rubbed her hand like it had been cold after he’d touched it. Immediately after remembering this, he had jumped up to test it.

He could hear his mom on the phone again, so he’d gone into Takao’s room instead. The 8-year-old had woken up and finished breakfast by then, so Suga had found him in the midst of an elaborate household drama involving cannibalistic plastic dinosaurs who seemed to be divided into three factions: one in a block fort, one under a blanket strung between the bed and the nightstand, and one in a cardboard box. It was a golden opportunity, so Suga had knelt down by him to watch for a minute, since his brother usually stopped what he was doing the second he realized someone was watching. It was more entertaining than the last three movies Suga had seen combined.

He chuckled at his brother’s antics and ruffled his hair. Was it coincidence? Wishful thinking? Or had Takao ducked away from his hand?

Takao continued making his dinosaurs talk to each other uninterrupted. Bracing himself, Suga reached out and ran his hand through his brother’s arm. Takao twitched, but otherwise took no notice. Encouraged by the fact that it didn’t seem to be hurting him, Suga tried running his hand through Takao’s shoulder, much slower this time. This time, the younger boy visibly shivered. He set down his dinosaur, got up, and went to get his sweatshirt off the back of the bedroom door.

“Mom! It’s freezing in here!” he yelled into the hall.

Suga vaguely heard his mom say something downstairs, then she called up, “Mommy’s on the phone right now, Takao, please don’t yell. Put on a jacket for now.”

“‘Kay! Sorry!”

Takao pulled his sweatshirt on and went back to his game. Suga would have loved to stick around and watch some more, but he had confirmed what he needed to and he still had a lot to figure out.

_I tried touching my brother and my dad. I can’t say for sure, but it seems like all they feel is cold when I touch them._

Finding out he could affect things, even in such a small way, was reassuring. It meant he was something, no matter how slight. He would take being a form of energy over being gone any day.

_My clothes seem to be a part of my ghost form. I’ve tried taking off my shoes and my jacket, but as soon as I let go of them, they appear right back where they started._

_The jury is still out on mental powers. I have not had luck moving anything with my mind yet. Will continue to test._

So that was about where he was at. He had been trying to levitate the pencil on his desk for about twenty minutes now, and he felt like it was time for a break. What Suga wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee right now! He wasn’t an avid coffee drinker, but he did have a cup every morning. Skipping it felt weird, like it had thrown off his routine and started his entire day wrong. The whole ghost situation might have had something to do with it, too, but Suga was sure the coffee would have helped fix things.

He went into the bathroom out of habit, intending to splash some water on his face, only realizing that wasn’t going to happen when he got in there. He looked in the mirror and was greeted by a charming view of the wall behind him.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” he said aloud. He pulled some faces at the empty mirror instead.

Maybe he should get outside.

* * *

Aishi Sugawara was on the phone, again. Every hour that passed made it worse. She hadn’t started to worry until last night, when Koushi hadn’t come home for dinner. She could count on one hand the number of times that had happened, and not once had it happened without a phone call or text to let her know.

He didn’t pick up his phone. Not the first time, or the second time, or the twelfth.

For eighteen years, she’d kept her mouth shut around other moms as they complained about their kids. _Shou-chan’s grades have been dropping. Maru-chan can’t seem to make any friends. I’ve spanked Aki-chan about six times today and he still won’t listen to a word I say._ Koushi had been such a perfect child it almost made her feel guilty. She shouldn’t have been able to coast through parenting the way she was. He wasn’t an angel, of course, he inherited too much of his dad’s sense of humor for that. But he liked most people and most people liked him. He always got good grades, was polite to his elders, and almost never had to be corrected for something more than once. After a decade of that, she and her husband Koutetsu had decided to try for another one. Takao was louder and more strong-willed than his brother, but he was still a markedly good, sweet-spirited child. She was proud of her boys.

So this, this was terrifying.

One of her friends had an acquaintance whose teenager ran off. Nobody was sure what had happened, all anyone heard was bits and pieces. The family was not interested in talking about it. Everyone knew it was willful, though. A runaway. Not a disappearance.

Last night, she had called Koushi’s best friend, Daichi. He’d last seen Koushi a couple blocks past the station, when they’d parted to go home. He had promised to spread the word and get back to her if he heard anything from his friends. She’d called Asahi herself next, anyway.

At least this information gave her an area to search. She and Koutetsu told Takao that Koushi was at a sleepover, and she was going to run an errand while his dad stayed with him.

She spent two hours scouring the neighborhood. The streets, the alleys, the convenience stores, the small copse near the river. Nothing turned up. Heart in her throat, she crossed the two bridges between the station and home, scanning the banks with her phone flashlight, praying she wouldn’t see anything. She didn’t.

At ten, she came home. Koutetsu had just put Takao to bed. They embraced briefly, and he went out next. 

She brushed her teeth and got ready for bed. She wanted nothing more than to call the police and raise hell right then and there, but they wouldn’t take a teenager missing for less than six hours seriously. Another hour passed, and another. The front door creaked open. Koutetsu came in, alone.

They went to bed. Neither of them slept.

Morning came and he still wasn’t back. She made breakfast and called Daichi. He hadn’t heard anything. The weather was turning cold, it was true, but the house still seemed oddly drafty.

Takao went to his room to play, still under the impression that his brother was out with friends. Her husband went to get through some paperwork.

And now, Aishi called the police.

“Hello, what’s your emergency?”

“Hello, my name is Aishi Sugawara. I would like to report a missing person.”

“All right, Sugawara-san, let me take down your information.”

She gave them the requisite information about herself and Koushi and the circumstances. The call was transferred, she was put on hold, and then the call was transferred again. Her patience was wearing thin, and the last person she talked to was the final straw.

“Sugawara-san, thank you for calling. We will start a missing persons file, but given the amount of time that has passed and the fact that your son is 18, there may not be much we can do. He’s a legal adult and therefore cannot be considered a runaway. I can put you in touch with some private detectives, and we’ll put out a department notice.”

Aishi snapped.

In her politest, iciest tone, she replied, “Sir, my son is not a runaway. If he were, I would respect his reasons and you would not be receiving a call from me. He is in danger and you WILL do something about it.”

The man on the other end sighed. “Ma’am, I really am sorry. Like I said, there’s not much we can do-”

“You’re repeating yourself. And you’re lying. You’re the police. You can and will do more than nothing.”

“I understand. How about-”

“You said you had private detectives. Give me their numbers.”

The man gave her four names and numbers, which she wrote down on a pad by the phone.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, ma’am?”

“Go home tonight and sleep well knowing someone is dying.”

Aishi hung up the phone.

She knew that was a terrible thing to say to someone. She did not care.

* * *

Suga heard the front door slam shut. He peeked out the window to see his mom speedwalking down the street like she had somewhere to be and didn’t care who was in her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *me: sprinkles in honorifics randomly* yes, I am learning Japanese, I know what I'm doing and not winging it at all
> 
> *also me*: I have to know exactly what day they pick up the trash in Miyagi Prefecture (spoiler alert, I did not have to know)
> 
> HA. Look at that. I managed to keep my momentum going into Day 2! This is officially the longest fic I've ever written. Pitiful.
> 
> Aaand it's another setup chapter. Not entirely happy with this one, I jumped around a lot and there's a lot of exposition. I'm sick of looking at it though. XD I have the next one written, and I like it a lot better (psst- Asahi and Daichi finally show up! It's what I've been trying to get to! I'm all about that volleybonding.) 
> 
> Again, comments are always appreciated, no matter how small. Constructive criticism, too! I would love to know if I'm mischaracterizing someone, misspelling words, sounding stilted or repetitive, being confusing with the timeline, etc. etc. Suggestions could be fun as well. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, have a lovely week!


	3. Chapter 3

Daichi sat in his room, trying to get through his homework. It was difficult, though, when his mind kept returning to Suga every five seconds. He’d been calling his cell phone every so often all day, and according to his mom there was still nothing. In the ten short, stupid minutes it should have taken him to get home after Daichi left him, he had disappeared.

He was angry, he told himself. He pictured the idiot crashing in the bushes all night and spending the morning lounging in a cafe with a volume of manga and a coffee. Any second now, Daichi’s phone would buzz and he’d look down to see a text that said “i win at hide and seek! you owe me a meat bun. better luck next time”.

Daichi knew his friend wouldn’t take a joke that far. Not to his own parents, anyway. But it was better to believe that than any of a large list of alternatives he could think of.

And he’d gotten off track again. This homework was going to take all day.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed. Daichi grabbed it so quickly he knocked his book of the desk, but he sighed when he saw the caller ID. He answered it.

“What’s up, Ace?”

“Ah… hi, Daichi,” came Asahi’s voice. There was a pause.

“Just spit it out. I’m trying to do homework.”

“Me too, it’s just… hard. Right now.”

Daichi rolled his eyes. He knew what his friend was getting at but he wanted him to just get to the point. “I’ll come over and study with you if you want, but you’re not going to copy my answers.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Daichi slapped his forehead audibly.

Asahi spoke again. “I’m sorry!” He took a deep breath. “Do you want to go look for him?”

“Who, Santa Claus?”

“Suga! I’m going to look for Suga! Are you coming?”

The bluntness was refreshing. Daichi smiled. He looked at the clock, then back at his barely-begun homework. “I’ll be there in ten. It’s not like I’m getting anything done here at home. Besides, I wouldn’t want to let you go on your own. There are all kinds of ghosts and monsters lurking around town, waiting to grab you when you’re all alone...”

“HEY! That’s not-”

Daichi hung up, chuckling evilly.

He grabbed his jacket and his backpack and hurried out the door.

* * *

Suga left his house through the front door. He could have left through his window, the roof, or any of the walls, really, but it felt more normal to use the door. Even if he normally opened it first.

By his logic, his body was still out there somewhere. He supposed he was a ghost, so anything could have happened, but people were made up of a body, mind, and spirit, right? He clearly had his spirit, and probably his mind, too, although he wasn’t completely sure what the distinction was. He still felt like himself. Restless ghosts he’d heard about, the ones kids exchange stories of before bed at sleepovers, were only spirits, uninhibited by a body or mind to get in the way of their fixation. He shivered. That would be awful. To be stuck forever dissatisfied and wanting, not knowing who you were, without your loved ones.

But he wasn’t. He was still Suga, just without his body.

He suddenly had an image of his mom handing him his forgotten bento, shaking her head and saying, “Honestly, Koushi, you’d lose your head if it weren’t attached.”

It was so ridiculous he laughed aloud, his train of thought derailed from the unpleasant track it had been headed down.

He continued down his street in a much cheerier frame of mind, smiling to himself. The plan was to systematically search along the normal route he took home, and gradually spread out from there. This was his free afternoon, so he had to do all he could now. Tomorrow he had school and volleyball practice, which would obviously look a little different for now, but he wasn’t going to let himself fall behind because of something dumb like this. They had made it through the qualifiers for the spring tournament a couple weeks ago, and he couldn’t afford to take a break.

Suga made sure to thoroughly poke into every alley between his neighbor’s houses. It didn’t seem likely he would find anything, but if he didn’t cover everything now, he would have to come back and check again later. Better to do it right the first time. Eventually, he turned off his street onto the one that ran alongside the river. He continued to check the alleys on his right, but decided to leave the river side for later.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with that right now.

Up ahead, he could see the small forest on the other side of the river. It seemed darker than it should be, somehow, especially since most of the leaves had dropped, leaving the skeletal tree branches silhouetted against the bright afternoon sky. It triggered something unpleasant.

Yeah, the river side could wait.

A while later, Suga made his way into town, near the point where he’d split off from Daichi last night. The sidewalks were more populated than they had been near his house, and he had had to dodge a couple people to avoid being walked through or spooking someone. He was just getting ready to turn around and widen his search, when something in the alley he was passing caught his eye. He stopped short.

A body bag.

At least, it looked like one.

It was an industrial-sized trash bag that was the same size and shape as a human body. Suga stared at it, suddenly apprehensive. “It’s probably nothing,” he said aloud. “Who throws out a body with their regular recycling?” He laughed at himself and shook his head. It was dumb.

But what if, though?

Worse, what if it  _ was _ a body and it wasn’t his?

Suga stood there debating what to do, and failed to notice the pedestrians approaching him.

Suddenly, there was an impact. His whole body was overcome with the cold static he was starting to become used to, only it was all at once and it wasn’t quite the same as before. Everything went black for a brief second, and he tried to squash down the panicked memories of earlier that morning, but then things settled. He felt… normal, but different.

“Daichi?”

Someone grabbed his arm.

Wait.

“Daichi, man, you’re freaking me out.”

Suga opened his eyes. Asahi stood before him, hands on his shoulders, looking down directly into his eyes. “Asahi?”

The word felt so strange in his mouth. Or maybe his mouth felt strange?

_ He can see me. _

“Yes! It’s me! No, no, no, do you not remember me? What happened? I didn’t see anything, you just stopped walking and-”

Every alarm bell was blaring in his head at once, his heartbeat loudest of all. His heartbeat. That he shouldn’t have. Asahi was going to pass out right now though, and that was the most pressing issue.

Suga grabbed Asahi’s forearms and lowered them from his shoulders.  _ Daichi. He called me Daichi. _ Suga looked at his arms. They were not his arms.  _ This means- no, no, what did I do? Where is Daichi? _

He put on his biggest, best reassuring smile. “Calm down, Mr. Glass Heart. I’m fine. Maybe you should sit down.”

Asahi’s eyes just widened. He yanked his arms away and stumbled backwards a couple steps, staring at Suga. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing! I’m-”

_...crapcrapcrap, I’m in Daichi’s body, he’s gonna kill me, isn’t this a violation or something, I need to get out! _

Rather than finish his sentence, Suga shut his eyes and tried with all his might to pull himself out. He just took a step backwards.

“I’m calling an ambulance!”

“NO!” Suga yelled in Daichi’s voice.

Asahi made a noise like a panicking squirrel.

Suga tried again, focusing on the distinction between himself and his- no, Daichi’s- body, and  _ yanked.  _ The cold feeling was sharp and quick, so intense it became hot, and everything went white.

When Suga opened his eyes again, he was sprawled on the sidewalk next to Daichi and Asahi. Daichi was slumping over, and Asahi caught him in one arm while fumbling the phone with his other hand. Asahi lowered himself and his friend to the ground, leaning against the brick of the storefront behind them, and the three boys sat on the sidewalk together.

Suga winced, sitting up. “Asahi, you don’t have to call-” He stopped himself as he looked at the captain, propped up against the storefront. His eyes were still closed. “Well, maybe you should. Don’t listen to me.”

Asahi of course, did not listen. His right arm still wrapped around his friend’s shoulders, he raised the phone to his ear, shakily answering the operator’s questions.

Suga examined Daichi in concern. He would be fine, right? Suga didn’t shove him out and make him a ghost too, did he? He looked around, but didn’t see anything besides a couple of pedestrians on the other side of the street. There was a couple who seemed not to have noticed them, and a middle-aged woman who had definitely noticed them and looked like she was about to cross over.

Daichi’s eyes fluttered open.

“Captain!” Asahi and Suga yelled in chorus.

Asahi turned back to the phone. “I’m sorry, he’s waking up. Yes, I’ll stay on the line.”

Daichi looked around, taking stock of the situation. His eyebrows furrowed and he punched Asahi in the chest weakly.

“Hey!” Asahi protested, moving his phone away from his mouth.

“I feel better now,” Daichi stated.

Asahi turned to his phone again. “I’m sorry, is it okay if I talk to my friend? I’m not hanging up.” Garbled assent came through the phone. He set it down on the sidewalk. “Are you good?”

Daichi snorted. “I think so. Pretty sure I can sit up by myself now.” He shrugged off Asahi’s arm.

“What the heck happened? I’m getting in that ambulance too as soon as it gets here. That was horrible.”

“I don’t know.” Daichi sat up straighter, looking at his hands, opening and closing them as if to test whether they worked. “Maybe I hit my head at practice yesterday and had a concussion without realizing it.”

“Not unless I did, too. I would have remembered that.”

Daichi frowned. “I don’t think I need an ambulance. I feel fine. Can you tell them to send it back?”

Asahi picked up the phone again. “I’m sorry, he says he’s okay. Is there any way we can cancel the ambulance?”

Suga couldn’t hear what the dispatcher said very well, but he imagined it was something like “you said he passed out for no reason, we will be sending the ambulance whether you like it or not,” because Asahi winced and sideyed Daichi. “She says-”

Daichi sighed and took the phone. “Hello? Yes, I’m the guy who just passed out. I have an iron deficiency, it happens sometimes if I stand up too quickly.”

Suga raised an eyebrow.  _ That _ was a lie. A very smooth lie.

“Yes, my friend didn’t know. I guess I should have warned him.” Daichi chuckled. “Sure! ...No, he caught me. I didn’t hit my head or anything. ...Yes, everything feels fine. ...Yes, our family doctor is monitoring me. He didn’t think it was anything to worry about.” There was a longer pause. “Thank you! Sorry for the trouble, have a good one.” Daichi hung up and handed Asahi’s phone back to him.

The woman Suga had noticed earlier had been standing at a respectful distance, but within earshot. “Are you boys all right?” she asked. “You weren’t fighting, were you?”

Asahi put his face in his hands and groaned.

Daichi laughed and waved her off. “We’re fine, thanks!”

She seemed hesitant to leave, but Daichi’s face must have been enough to reassure her, even with Asahi behind him looking more ghostlike than Suga, because she did. “All right then. ‘Bye, boys.”

As soon as her back was turned, Daichi’s smile dropped.

“You’re not fine!” Asahi accused.

“No, seriously, I am! I’ll punch you again.”

The two boys leaned against the wall, staring off into space. Suga wished he could say something.

After a minute, Asahi spoke. “Please, _ please _ , don’t EVER smile at me like that again.”

Daichi looked confused. “What?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember walking down the sidewalk, and I remember waking up with you on the phone.”

“You don’t remember talking? You called me Mr. Glass Heart, you said you were fine, which you obviously weren’t because you passed out, and you smiled. It was super creepy.”

“What, are you saying I don’t ever smile?”

“Not like that, you don’t, and especially not at me! It wasn’t like you! It was almost like…” Asahi’s eyes met Daichi’s, and he looked away quickly.

“Say it, man bun.”

“Like… Suga. Ahh, I’m just thinking about it too much. It was stupid. Forget I said that. Suga never looked that creepy anyway.”

“Darn right I don’t.” Suga said, crossing his arms in mock offense.

“Stop talking about him in the past tense!” Daichi finally delivered the punch he’d been threatening. He moved to stand up, and offered Asahi a hand. The boy took it, and the two of them gathered everything they’d dropped on the ground in the chaos. “I need some tea and a snack. Let’s go into that cafe over there.”

Asahi took a deep breath. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”

Did those two have to bring that up? Suga had just managed to forget about how badly he wanted a latte. He sighed wistfully and followed his friends into the cafe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suga: EVERYTHING IS DAIJOUBU  
> Daichi: EVERYTHING IS DAIJOUBU  
> Narrator: everything was not daijoubu
> 
> ~~"hey Pickle, if you posted a chapter every week, you'd give yourself time to actually write without weird big gaps between posting sprees" yeah okay but. I wrote the chapter. it'll burn a hole in the doc if I don't get it out of there~~
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, peace be with you or whatever the kids are saying these days!


	4. Chapter 4

Daichi tossed his bag on the bed and flopped down face first without taking his jacket off.

He and Asahi had found nothing.

Not that he’d really expected to.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary in the streets, nobody in any of the shops had seen hide nor silver hair of their friend. He supposed they could have stayed out longer, but the sun was setting so early now and he wasn’t sure what good it would do to look around in the dark. It had been pointless, but at least it had been something to do, even if nothing happened.

Well. Not nothing. There was the little matter of him passing out in the middle of the street.

He had smiled, reassured everyone it was nothing. He had even convinced Asahi to stop worrying somehow. Who knew, maybe it was nothing. 

But it had sure felt like something.

Daichi was not superstitious. His friends were, and that was fine, a little superstition never hurt anyone, and maybe there was value in it after all. If he were, he might have an easier time explaining things to himself. He hadn’t lied to Asahi, exactly, he really did feel all right in the moment and he really only remembered blacking out. But he hadn’t told the whole truth. First, and most concerningly in his opinion, he now had a headache that had been steadily building ever since he woke up. Maybe it was just the adrenaline.

Second, Daichi had blacked out before. Once in elementary school from dehydration, and once in his first year of high school when he’d tripped at volleyball practice and hit his head. He was sure this was different. The first time had been slow- he’d felt it coming and lowered himself to the ground. The second time, obviously, it was because he’d inadvertently been lowered to the ground way too fast. This time, he felt like he’d crashed… _through_ something, which didn’t make any sense. His body went through, but that something that had shoved his consciousness back until it flattened into nothing.

_That’s stupid. How is that any different from blacking out or falling asleep?_

It had been, though. And what was more worrying, Asahi had described the whole thing to him in detail at the coffee shop. He’d said things, done things, apparently with perfect clarity, that he had no memory of. There was a gap in his memory, and it scared him.

And then when Asahi had mentioned Sugawara, for the briefest of seconds, Daichi had been surprised to look up and realize the setter wasn’t there. He supposed that one could be chalked up to habit, though. He’d been thinking about him all day, and the three of them were together more often than not.

Maybe he shouldn’t have cancelled the ambulance. He knew he would’ve yelled at any of his teammates for doing what he’d done.

Daichi rolled over on his bed. _That’s enough thinking for one day. I’m eating dinner, I’m going to bed early, and then I’ll go to the hospital in the morning if my headache hasn’t gone away by then._

_It’s been twenty-four hours,_ whispered his brain, evidently not ready to stop thinking yet. _Twenty-four hours, and Suga isn’t back yet._

* * *

Later that night, Asahi sat at his desk, staring at his still incomplete homework. His head wouldn’t stop playing the same incessant loop of anxious thoughts, and he couldn’t seem to shake it no matter how hard he tried. 

He knew, despite the captain’s attitude, that Daichi was every bit as worried about Suga’s disappearance as he was, they just dealt with stuff differently. He tended to internalize things. Asahi did not. He looked down at the running list he’d been keeping of both likely and unlikely things that might have happened to Suga, in the order they came to him.

  1. Owed the Yakuza money he couldn’t pay
  2. Got tired at practice, sleepwalked past his house and got lost
  3. Psychotic old lady who runs the bookstore locked him in her basement
  4. Taken by spirits
  5. Accidentally walked into an identical house with an identical family and hasn’t noticed yet
  6. Got beaten up in an alley by Oikawa out of jealousy
  7. Tripped and fell down a manhole



Asahi placed a book over the list so he’d stop looking at it. Writing things down only helped get things out of his head if he got rid of the writing afterwards.

And as if Suga’s disappearance wasn’t bad enough, Daichi almost died right in front of him earlier and was refusing to acknowledge it. Honestly, the captain had no right to get on his team for all the dumb stuff they did just because he hogged their shared braincell most of the time. After all, it was still a shared braincell, and clearly Asahi was the one who had it today. Concussions didn’t go away if you wished hard enough.

That was how things worked, though. Daichi took care of the team, and his friends took care of him. But now they were down a man, and it was up to Asahi. 

He knew he could step up, but he still missed Suga.

That was the other thing he couldn’t get out of his head: the way Daichi had smiled at him on the sidewalk earlier. He wasn’t sure why he had compared it to Suga at the time, so he’d immediately taken it back, but the more he thought about it the more convinced he was to trust his initial instinct. The brief wide-eyed look of confusion that had crossed his friend’s face, and then that smile. 

Of course Daichi smiled. For all the teasing and bickering that went on, he really did, and Asahi considered himself pretty familiar with all of them. One was wide, confident, and encouraging, one aggressive and a bit scary, one small and full of pride in his friends. But this smile had been unmistakable. The way Daichi’s eyes had to squinch shut to make room for it, the way it lit up his whole face and immediately made Asahi want to forgive any crimes he had ever committed or would choose to commit in the future. It was both comforting and horrifying, straight from the bottom of the uncanny valley. It was his friend, but it definitely wasn’t.

Asahi knew what he had seen, but he didn’t have an explanation, and he supposed the sooner he came to terms with that, the better it would be for his sanity.

* * *

Kiyoko Shimizu’s phone chimed. She set down her pencil and tucked her hair behind her ear, flipping it open to read the text. It was from Sawamura. It must be important if he was bothering to text someone this late at night.

_ Hi, Shimizu. Do you have a minute? _

Really important, then. If it was about practice or something, he would just say it and let her answer whenever she was ready. Her heart rate increased. She hoped he had heard from Sugawara, and that it was something good, because that text was awfully ambiguous in tone.

_ Yes _

Almost as soon as she’d sent it, her phone rang, and she answered immediately.

“Hello?”

“Shimizu-san, hi. Sorry to bother you.”

“It’s fine, I’m not busy. What is it?” Kiyoko leaned back in her chair, doing her best to prepare herself for whatever it was. “Have you heard from Sugawara yet?”

“Actually, Asahi and I went out looking for him this afternoon. We didn’t find anything, though, and last I heard, his parents haven’t either.”

Kiyoko let out a breath. “Oh. That’s too bad.”

“Yeah. I wish I had something better. I just figured I should keep you updated.”

“Thank you.” Kiyoko wondered if that was all he’d called for, not that she minded. She was glad Sawamura felt comfortable enough to call when one of their best friends went missing, and it was nice to hear someone’s voice rather than only texting.

Sawamura spoke again, sounding hesitant. “There’s something else I should let you know, too.”

She waited for him to continue.

“I passed out while I was with Asahi today. Ah, don’t worry about it or anything, I’m fine, it was just out of the blue and kinda strange. I know he’ll be keeping an eye on me tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure someone who’s a little less… prone to panicking knew.”

Kiyoko hummed to acknowledge she was listening. That wasn’t good. “Are you sure we shouldn’t tell Takeda-sensei and Coach Ukai?”

“I honestly don’t think it will happen again. I’ve felt fine ever since aside from a little headache.”

Although she knew he had a tendency to underplay his own injuries, Sawamura’s judgement was generally sound, and the fact he’d let someone know instead of hiding it completely was reassuring, so Kiyoko agreed to keep it between them for the time being. She privately resolved to tell the teachers the second anything looked off.

“I’m glad you told me.”

“Thanks. Again, sorry to bother you, don’t worry too much. I’ll let you go now.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Shimizu.”

He hung up, leaving Kiyoko alone in the dim light from her desk lamp.  _ Don’t worry too much _ . She shook her head. The sentiment was nice, but one of her boys was missing completely and now another one was having fainting spells, so not worrying was not an option.

* * *

Suga phased through his front door. If he wasn’t imagining things, his night vision had improved quite a bit, but it was still dark out now and he needed to regroup. He’d searched in every place he could think of, and even some that just caught his fancy along the way. Even the promising-looking bag that had caused the whole debacle earlier had turned out to be a large broken piece of exercise equipment. He’d gone back to check after hanging around the cafe with Daichi and Asahi for a bit and catching up on what they were doing.

Sure, he hadn’t checked the forest yet, but he definitely wasn’t doing that in the dark.

He passed the kitchen on his way back to his room. His mom was making another phone call. Again. He paused in the doorway. Whoever she was calling must not have answered, because she redialed the number, leaned against the counter, and waited.

He barely caught the words she whispered. “Please, Kou-chan. Just answer it.”

Oh. She was calling him.

The floor creaked behind him, and, yelping, he narrowly dodged his dad entering the kitchen, thank goodness. He wasn’t going to repeat earlier today if he could help it.

Suga’s mom smiled at his dad half-heartedly, shutting off her phone as it reached the answering machine again.

He smiled back. “I thought we turned the heat up, but I just felt a draft again. I know all the windows are shut. Remind me to check and see if mice are chewing holes in the walls tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly, Koutetsu, if we had mice they’d be getting into the food,” his mom replied, smacking her husband’s shoulder lightly.

“If they were smart they would be. I don’t think even a mouse could deny how good your cooking is.” 

Suga’s mom laughed, the most genuine laugh he’d heard from her all day, and his dad wrapped her in a hug. She hugged him back tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. 

“Gross,” said Suga jokingly, out of habit. He really did love that his parents were affectionate with each other, but they rarely showed it physically in front of him or his brother, and he didn’t feel right sticking around. With one last glance to make sure his mom wasn’t about to throw a kitchen towel at him for looking, he turned and continued up to his room.

He’d come home because he was out of ideas for the day, but now that he was home he wasn’t sure what to do either. Taking a bath or a shower was out of the question, as was brushing his teeth. 

He went into the bathroom and ran his fingers through his hair in front of the empty mirror anyway, for the sake of it. It seemed like all the nuance of touch was gone: he could feel that he was solid, he could feel his hair moving and smoothing down beneath his fingertips, but he couldn’t feel its softness. It was almost like his hand had fallen asleep, only without the pins-and-needles sensation. 

He finished combing his hair and examined his hand for the dozenth time that day. Suga chuckled at himself. It was like some kind of shonen anime compulsion. Maybe it was just the bathroom lighting, but was his hand… transparent? Just a bit. Interesting. He must not have looked at it closely enough earlier. 

The door to his room was still propped halfway open, like it had been earlier that day. Not having to pass through it was a bonus. Suga couldn’t change into his pajamas, either, but he took off his shoes and socks and wrapped them in his jacket. He laid down on his bed, arms wrapped around the bundle so it would stay put and he wouldn’t have to wake up in his shoes again, and closed his eyes.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty, then an hour. Two hours after lying down, Suga accepted the fact that he was just as awake as he’d been all day. This was a problem. Wasn’t sleep supposed to reset your brain, or something?

_Wouldn’t_ that _be a discovery. Ghosts aren’t restless because they have anger issues or unfinished business or anything, they’re just sleep deprived._ He laughed at himself.

Sitting up, he put his jacket, shoes, and socks back on, and stretched. _Maybe I can get my homework done._

_Oh, right. My homework is in my bag with my phone. With my body, probably._

  
  


_...MY PHONE._ Suga slapped his forehead. He should have thought of it sooner. If his body really was just lying around with his stuff, anyone who was nearby would be able to hear his phone ringing. He tried to remember whether he’d turned the ringer back on after class as usual.

It was a long shot, though. Not only did he or someone else have to be nearby, it had to have battery left and someone had to call it at the right time. He could have missed it today, for all he knew. The brief flash of inspiration he’d felt faded. He couldn’t call his own phone like this or ask anyone else to.

Well, he did have one way to talk to people. It hadn’t turned out very well earlier today, though. He’d been trying not to think about it. There were too many risks, Suga told himself. He’d barely been able to undo it last time, and Daichi apparently hadn’t been conscious. What if he got stuck like that and doomed someone else in the process? Daichi had claimed not to be suffering any negative aftereffects, but Suga knew better than to take Daichi’s assessment of his own pain at face value.

Still, though, it was a last resort, an option that shouldn’t be discounted. If worse came to worst, he might be able to pull it off one more time in an emergency.

Suga’s mind returned to the original problem of what to do. He didn’t have homework, which he’d figured he could at least think about even if he didn’t write anything, but he had left a new issue of Shonen Jump lying open on his desk. “Bless you, me from yesterday,” he said aloud. It was just two pages, but maybe he could… read slowly.

It still took him all of five minutes.

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR I'LL QUIT WITH ALL THE INTROSPECTION NEXT CHAPTER AND GET TO SOME MORE DIALOGUE
> 
> I was planning to skim over the first day, but it ended up taking 4 chapters. Oops. At least they're pretty short chapters. XD
> 
> me: yeah i don't really ship, like i don't hate ships, they can be fun, but i'm really all about the platonic stuff  
> also me: *invents random parents for Suga and starts tapping their faces together like Barbies* _now kiss_  
>  ~~I just wanted to make sure they and he had a good support system and then they started flirting on their own I'm sorry~~
> 
> If you got this far, thanks so much for reading! It's been 3 days and despite how quickly things get buried in this fandom this already has like 7 kudos and I treasure every single one. Thank you. Again, both positive and negative comments are welcome, but only if you have the spoons! I truly do like to know what I'm doing wrong since I don't have a beta and am pretty new to writing.
> 
> Hugs and pats, and also stop procrastinating on your assignments by reading fanfic,
> 
> Pickle
> 
> EDIT 12/29/20: forgot to loop in Shimizu like a dingus. next chapter will hopefully be up before too long XD


	5. Chapter 5

It, as Suga expected, had been a long night. He’d spent it mostly experimenting with his ghost powers (telekinesis was still a no, apparently), occasionally taking breaks to think in peace for a bit or look at the same two Jump pages in case he’d missed anything. His family had gone to sleep by the time he’d realized he couldn’t, but he wasn’t sure how much his parents actually slept. Judging from the amount of times one or the other got up to use the bathroom or go to the kitchen, it wasn’t a restful night for either of them. It sent a pang of guilt through his heart that was harder to shake in the quiet of the night than it had been in the daytime. Sure, he hadn’t _meant_ for this to happen, but shouldn’t he be doing more? His parents didn’t deserve to deal with this any longer than necessary. What _could_ he do besides keep a clear head, test his limits, and come up with a plan?

But at long last, morning came, and with it something to do. Suga was going to class. It would be better for his sanity than sitting at home all day stuck in his own head, and as much as he hoped he could fix this quickly, he couldn’t assume he would only be missing a couple days of class. If this was going to be a long-term thing, he couldn’t afford to fall behind. Best to have all his bases covered, and maybe give himself a fresh perspective.

Having left as soon as he felt it was reasonable, Suga ended up getting to school early. Nobody was around besides a couple stray teachers who were hurrying into the school, tucking their chins into their coats and scarves, inhaling the steam from thermoses of hot coffee like it was the last bit of oxygen left on Earth and the bare smell of it would keep them alive. It occurred to Suga that it was pretty cold out. He hadn’t thought about it until he saw other people being affected by it. Everything still felt like a nice kind of nothing temperature to him, despite his thin jacket and track pants.

Aside from the cold, it was a beautiful morning. The sun was still working its way over the east mountains, and everything just _looked_ fresh and crisp.

Suga stretched his arms out above his head. He almost missed the cold, despite never having been that big a fan of it, but he was beginning to realize that there was something to be grateful for in the tangibility of even unpleasant things. They had been tying him to the world, and he hadn’t even noticed. He inhaled deeply and pretended the slight static that came with the motion was bracing winter air filling his lungs.

It worked, sort of.

With a few minutes to kill, he decided against the temptation of peeking into the teacher’s offices (for the moment, anyway) and opted to do a few laps around the school instead. Flying laps.

Flying was still weird. Even though he could now, apparently, it still took conscious effort. His 18 years of practice walking everywhere were hard to shake in a day, it seemed. 

When he’d tried it for the first time yesterday, it had been an exciting shock, but also something of a disappointment. The fact that he was higher than he’d ever been without something solid underneath him was tempered by how… boring it was. Whenever Suga had pictured flight, he’d always thought of weightlessness. Speed. Thrill. The moment at the top of a jump before gravity reasserted itself, roller coasters, running dives into swimming pools. But without a physical form to act on, gravity was powerless. A cool concept, but underwhelming in practice. Flying felt like walking, but higher up.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t its own kind of fun, though. He soared around the school, taking in all the good sitting places on the roof he’d never noticed and the way the sun lit up the few leaves that had so far refused to leave the tree branches. 

Eventually, students started to trickle onto the campus. A familiar orange head stuck out below him like an emergency flare, bouncing towards the gym, closely followed by a black-haired student who walked equally quick but less erratically. He thought about following them, but off in the distance, he spied Daichi and Asahi.

As he moved closer, the two exchanged a word or two with halfhearted smiles, and Asahi split off toward the main building. Probably had some school thing to take care of. Suga wondered if he was planning to come to morning practice. He fell into step with Daichi, leaning forward to get a better look at his face.

“Dude, you look awful.” Suga swatted at him, and Daichi shivered. “Please tell me you at least _tried_ to sleep last night.”

Daichi sighed. Suga frowned at the dark circles under his eyes, and decided he was going to nickname him “raccoon” effective immediately, and would not drop it until the captain fixed his sleep habits.

_Wait. This had better not be because of me._

_Great._

Suga followed Daichi across the campus and into the club room, where Kageyama and Hinata were already in the process of changing. The second the captain opened the door, though, a shirtless Kageyama was in front of him, uniform dropped hastily on the ground as if he’d teleported to the door mid-change, eyes uncharacteristically wide and full of concern. Hinata was close behind, struggling to poke his messy orange head out of his T-shirt.

“Is Suga-san here?” Kageyama asked.

Before Daichi could respond, Hinata smacked Kageyama’s arm. “You can’t just _ask_ like that!”

Kageyama turned on him. “I want to know! How else’m I supposed to ask, stupid?”

“I don’t know, with tact?”

“What does that even mean? I-”

Daichi held up a hand before the two could get into it any farther. “It’s okay, Hinata. No, I still haven’t heard from him. I’m sure he’s fine, though. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Suga said wryly.

Both younger boys visibly deflated at the news. Hinata slouched his way back over to his stuff and sat down on the floor, getting ready to put his gym shoes on. “I hope he gets back soon. We only have one setter to practice with without him.”

Kageyama snorted, pulling his shirt on. “Is that all you care about? Now who needs tact?”

“Hey! I didn’t mean it that way and you know it!”

Suga would’ve taken mock offense if anyone had been able to see him. Really, he was glad that his “absence” hadn’t seemed to squash his juniors’ mood for now.

_Actually,_ he thought, watching as they started to squabble over who had gotten dressed faster, _maybe they could stand to be a_ little _more worried._

Suga’s eyes went to Daichi. His eyebrows were furrowed, face in the same grim cast it had been defaulting to when no one was looking since yesterday. _But then again, maybe not._ He wished he could cheer him up, let him know he was right there and he was fine and it was okay. He was so close and yet he might as well have been on the moon.

The boys finished changing and started for the gym together. The others would probably show up soon. According to the clock on the gym wall, there was still about 20 minutes before practice officially began.

Kageyama and Hinata began warming up, and Daichi disappeared into the equipment closet. Suga suddenly found himself unsure of what to do. In class, he knew he would sit and listen, but he didn’t know what he’d been planning on here. Was he going to watch? Maybe if they were playing a game. It wouldn’t be the first time, either. But he didn’t think watching his teammates do drills for an hour would be very interesting or useful.

The captain emerged with the volleyball cart, and Suga walked over to it, poking at a volleyball idly. Maybe he should practice his ghost powers, do some ghost drills. It wasn’t difficult, exactly, to pass through walls or fly, but it still didn’t come naturally. If he could get used to walking just above people’s heads, he wouldn’t have to worry so much about running into them, and maybe walking through walls would feel less freaky if he did it enough. 

As the time neared 7 o’clock, his teammates began to trickle in, Nishinoya first, followed by Tanaka barreling through the door a few minutes later. Ennoshita and the other second years came in a bit more sedately, then Yachi and Shimizu. Asahi looked a bit out of breath, as though he’d run all the way from his classroom, then Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei, and finally, five minutes late, Tsukishima sauntered into the gym with Yamaguchi behind him.

All of them, except for the two adults, had been eyeing Daichi with varying degrees of subtlety, but the captain was bordering on scary face mode now and no one seemed to have the courage to press him for details. From things Daichi, Asahi, and his mother had said yesterday, Suga had been able to put together that everyone here was at least aware of his disappearance. It seemed his mom had called at least the other third years, the coach, and the teacher, and Daichi had sent everyone on the team a text in case anyone knew anything. 

The atmosphere in the gym was off as everyone pretended they weren’t all wondering the same thing. When they all gathered in a semicircle on the floor to discuss plans for the week as usual, Daichi finally updated everyone on the situation, but it still didn’t seem to help. No one was playing up to their usual standards. Hinata kept hitting way too late, Tsukishima was quieter than usual (which Suga hadn’t even thought was possible), and Asahi’s serves were all over the place. Even Tanaka and Nishinoya, who were doing their best to keep up the mood, clearly had just as much work to do convincing themselves as everyone else.

In the third set, Kageyama set the ball to Asahi, who spiked it so hard that not only did it hit the floor out of bounds, it bounced back up again and landed on the balcony. As usual, a chorus of “Don’t mind! You’ll get the next one!” came from his teammates, but Asahi just put his face in his hands. “Sorry, guys. I know I’m really off my game today. I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Hey, why not today?” Nishinoya reached up, grinning, and smacked the ace on the back, knocking him forwards a bit. “I know you can pull through, you always do.”

Asahi gave a halfhearted smile, probably more at Nishinoya’s attempt to cheer him up than from an actual feeling of reassurance. Hinata was already waving one hand in the air and yelling “I got it, I got it!” He spun around and scurried up the ladder after the rogue ball, reappearing a second later on the balcony.

Suga watched as Daichi clapped his hands and everyone got back into position. 

“Find it yet, Shoyo?” called Nishinoya. 

Hinata’s head popped up. “Yup!” Volleyball tucked under his arm, he made his way over to the railing. “Guys, look what I learned how to do the other day.” He tossed the ball gently into the air and leaned over the railing, stretching his arm out as if to bump it.

It went too far. Hinata went after it anyway.

Suga wasn’t sure what he’d been trying to do, and he wasn’t about to waste time guessing, because before anyone could so much as blink, the orange haired boy was falling. Falling head-first.

His chest seized up. 

He had always assumed that the expression “my life flashed before my eyes” was an exaggeration, something people made up to get across a feeling rather than a literal experience, but in that moment, a series of images flashed before him. 

Hinata, failing miserably at his middle school match, yet not losing an ounce of his determination.

Hinata, on the first day of high school, tiny and full of fire, yelling something about his jumping abilities.

Hinata, well and truly flying above the net, driving Kageyama’s tosses down before a rainbow of different opposing teams, always with the same expression, a feeling they all knew to some extent, but magnified a hundred times, shining out of the younger boy’s face and reaching everyone who saw him.

All sound disappeared into a vacuum.

He saw Daichi, lying impossibly still on the gym floor. 

And then, Daichi’s hair was orange, his body smaller than it had been since middle school. 

Blood pooled beneath him.

There was no time to think. No time to worry about whether anything would work or to think of multiple plans and choose the best one. Suga shot straight for Hinata’s falling form, catching a glimpse of the panic in his amber eyes before everything went black.

Gravity took over.

_No. Open your eyes. DO SOMETHING._

He was falling now. He grabbed hold of the feeling of levitation he’d been practicing for the past couple days and desperately prayed it would be stronger than gravity.

_Thud._

It didn’t hurt as much as he had expected it to. At the last second, his fall had slowed, and he’d managed to roll sideways without hitting his head. His heart was pounding. He flopped onto his back and shut his eyes, catching his breath. All around him, the gym began to echo with concerned voices and yells, footsteps rushing towards him.

“Hinata!”

“Hinata-kun!”

“Is he okay?”

Okay. He was okay. _Hinata_ was okay.

He heard Coach Ukai swear loudly, and someone’s hand rested on his head. Slowly, he opened his eyes, only to be greeted by Kageyama’s face blocking out the overhead lights. Suga had no idea what that expression was supposed to mean. It was a toss-up between angry, concerned, about to cry, and constipated, maybe all four.

As soon as he thought it, though, Kageyama’s face settled into a scowl, and he backed away a little. “What was that!? You wanted to show us how you could break your legs and die!? The heck were you thinking, idiot!? You can’t just _do_ that! What possessed you to-”

Suga winced a little at that last one.

Kageyama’s yelling was cut off by Tanaka dragging him back. “Shut up! He could still be hurt! Just because he’s awake doesn’t mean he’s fine!”

“Everybody, please. Back up a little.” That was Takeda-sensei. He was the one with the hand on Suga’s head. Coach Ukai was kneeling on the ground next to him, pale (as a ghost, Suga’s mind supplied tactlessly). Yachi’s eyes were filling with tears. Almost everyone was crowded around him and immediately stepped back at the teacher’s request, except for…

Suga looked past the coach, and there was Nishinoya, frozen on the ground a couple feet away, with one arm stretched out towards him as if to receive a ball. His eyes were locked on Suga, but his gaze was distant. He was breathing hard.

Suga tried to smile and give him a thumbs up.

“Can you talk?” asked Takeda. “Where does it hurt?”

Suga turned his attention back towards the teacher. He took stock of his- no, Hinata’s body. He felt a little cramped, and his shoulder was a little sore, but otherwise, he felt fine.

“My shoulder is a little sore, but otherwise I think I’m fine,” he told Takeda. He shifted, trying to prop himself on his elbow and sit up.

“Ah, wait!” Takeda held out his hands. “Don’t sit up yet. One more question, did you hit your head?”

Suga paused halfway off the floor and shook his head. “Nope.”

Takeda and Ukai looked at each other and frowned. “Are you sure?” asked Ukai.

“It’s true,” Tsukishima spoke up. “It looked like he caught himself.”

Ennoshita, Tanaka, and Shimizu nodded in agreement.

“Was anyone else watching?”

“I think we all were, sir, but it happened too fast for me to tell,” replied Daichi.

Ukai sighed and sat back on his heels. “Let’s get you to the nurse’s office, then, Hinata.”

Of course he had to go to the nurse’s office. He’d just fallen from a story up. But there were bigger problems, ones he hadn’t had time to think through yet. Daichi had seemed fine this morning, aside from the lack of sleep, so would it be all right for Suga to hang around, or should he let Hinata have his body back as soon as possible? Was Daichi only all right because it was a short period of time? What was he planning on _doing_ in Hinata’s body, anyway? 

Suga pictured himself saying, “Hey guys, it’s me, Sugawara. I’m just a ghost borrowing Hinata’s body to keep him from dying and also let you know I’m alive still, so don’t worry. Anyway I’d better let Hinata have it back before something happens, so peace out for now, catch Hinata when I drop him.”

Yeah. He should probably keep his mouth shut for now. There was no point in making everyone think Hinata really had hit his head and gone crazy. Besides, he was beginning to form an idea.

Suga sat up carefully, brushing the orange bangs out of his eyes with his fingers. There was a reason he always combed his own hair the way he did. No wonder Hinata missed things sometimes. 

He took a deep breath, looking around at his teammates. They all seemed a bit more at ease, although they were still watching him carefully. Nishinoya was finally sitting up too.

Ukai stood and offered him a hand. “Do you think you can walk?”

“I think so.” Suga took his hand and stood. He didn’t feel dizzy or anything.

“Good.” Ukai turned to the rest of the group. “All right, everyone, wrap it up. I don’t think we’ll get much more done this morning, and you all have class soon. Takeda and I will take Hinata to the nurse.”

“Yes, sir.” Everyone reluctantly moved to start cleaning up the gym.

That wasn’t ideal. “No, really, Coach, I’ll be fine. It’s not far.”

“Someone is going with you, and that’s final. I guess both of us don’t really need to go, though.” Takeda nodded in agreement, and Ukai scanned the teenagers in the room. Tanaka had clearly overheard and was pretending to look as responsible as possible. At least, that’s what Suga assumed was going on. He wasn’t sure why else Tanaka would have randomly stopped in the middle of the gym to square his shoulders and sneak looks at them.

“I’ll go with.” 

Suga jumped. How had Kageyama snuck up behind him?

“No.” Ukai said firmly.

“If I don’t, he’ll jump off another railing again.” Kageyama argued.

Ukai pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’d have to find one between here and the nurse’s office first. And if he did, you might jump off first just to prove you could do it better.”

Kageyama looked genuinely offended. 

Suga snickered.

“Shut up, you,” Kageyama growled.

“Shimizu,” Ukai called. She looked up. “Would you mind taking Hinata to the nurse?”

“Okay.” Shimizu said something to Yachi, who nodded in response, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, and hurried over. 

“Don’t worry, we’ve got it covered here,” called Daichi from across the gym.

Tanaka stopped posing. “This gym is gonna be so clean by the time we’re done with it. Right, Noya?”

“Yep,” Nishinoya said. He stepped into the supply closet without turning around.

Tanaka’s expression fell as he watched Nishinoya go, but he still aimed one last grin at Suga before running off to join him. “Go get fixed up, little dude, and don’t be late for practice this afternoon!”

“Got it!”

As Shimizu and Suga left the gym and started across the campus, he couldn’t help laugh about how weird it was to be called “little dude” by Tanaka, of all people. He wasn’t that much shorter than him ordinarily. And Kageyama had told him to shut up. He supposed it was good that nobody noticed he wasn’t Hinata, but he still felt a tiny bit guilty. Still, he wondered what Kageyama would do if he found out he’d spoken to an upperclassman that way.

“What’s so funny?” Shimizu asked.

“Ah, nothing.”

And speaking of height, Hinata really was short. It went without saying, but it was different experiencing it. Suga had only ever metaphorically looked up to Shimizu, until now, anyway. He was still a bit salty that every single other first year that had joined that year was taller than him, but Hinata definitely had it worse. It almost felt like he didn’t fit in Hinata’s body, which was weird, since he shouldn’t be taking up any physical space.This hadn’t happened with Daichi. Maybe he’d just been panicking too much to notice at the time. It was like the pressure of a mild headache, only all over and without the pain. 

The air was still chilly. He had thought he would appreciate it earlier, but now he was just mentally berating Hinata for taking his jacket off in the first place and himself for not thinking to put it on before they left the gym. They were almost to the school now, though, so he didn’t think it would be worth it to go back.

Shimizu noticed him shivering. “Do you want my jacket?”

“Huh?” Suga unfolded his arms and swung them at his sides. “No, no, it’s fine.”

“Okay.”

Was it just him, or was she looking at him funny?

The two entered the school and started down the hallway.

Shimizu was definitely looking at him funny.

“Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself? You’re being awfully quiet.”

Oh. There it was. Maybe he wasn’t as good at being Hinata as he thought, not that he’d really tried. It wouldn’t hurt to tell Shimizu what was going on now, would it?

“Just thinking.” Now _there_ was something he’d never caught Hinata doing. Oh well. He said what he said.

Shimizu hummed in acknowledgement.

They reached the nurse’s office before Suga could make up his mind whether to tell Shimizu anything. They explained what had happened, and the nurse checked him over before declaring him sound and telling him not to strain his shoulder for a couple days. Shimizu seemed relieved, and Suga was too, but he still had a couple things to take care of before he could leave the office.

“There’s still a few minutes before class. Is it all right if I lie down here for a minute?”

The nurse turned around. “Sure, honey. Dizzy? Something else you forgot to tell me?”

“Nope! Just tired, that’s all.” Suga smiled. “Oh, and one more thing?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have some paper and a pen anywhere? I need to write something down before I forget.”

The nurse reached inside her desk and obligingly handed him a memo pad and a pen. Suga sat down on the cot and began writing, angling the pad away from both Shimizu and the nurse. He tore off the top sheet, folded it, and wrote something on the outside. He repeated the process with a second note, and handed it to Shimizu.

“Can you please give this to Daichi as soon as possible?”

Shimizu nodded. Suga bit his tongue. He really wanted to add, “and please don’t open it or lose it because it’s really important,” but he knew she wasn’t likely to do either of those things and it would only make her suspicious.

The second note was more trouble. He needed to get it to Hinata, but he wasn’t sure where to leave it so Hinata would actually read it without being too obvious. He settled for his hand. He’d have to trust Hinata to have the sense not to blurt something out too soon.

Now he just needed to be alone. The nurse obliged before he could even ask, saying she’d be back in fifteen minutes but to leave whenever he was ready.

Suga looked at Shimizu. “Well, it looks like I’m all clear! It’s okay if you want to head to class now.”

“All right. See you later, Hinata.” Shimizu waved as she left the room.

Well. That was easier than he’d expected.

He waited a minute to make sure neither of them were coming back, and then yanked himself forward as hard as he could.

It worked on the first try this time, although it felt much more difficult than it had yesterday. The sensation of being ripped away from a body had definitely not gotten any more pleasant. Suga settled himself by the far side of Hinata’s bed to wait for him to wake up.

Then Shimizu came back.

Crap. Why did she have to come back? Just a couple more minutes, and it wouldn’t have mattered. _Maybe she’ll think Hinata is sleeping. I did say I wanted to rest._

There was no such luck.

Shimizu, upon seeing Hinata lying on the bed with his eyes closed, hurried over to him. Her eyebrows furrowed. “I knew something wasn’t right,” she mumbled. She shook him gently, but he didn’t respond. Quickly, she lifted his wrist and felt his pulse. It must have been fine, because she relaxed a little and shook Hinata again, a little harder this time. Still nothing.

_Please don’t call the nurse, please don’t call the nurse, please don’t call the nurse-_

Shimizu looked like she was considering something, and Suga wished ghost powers included telepathy. Even if knowing what she was thinking didn’t do him any good, maybe he could still mentally will Hinata to wake up.

And then, Hinata let out an undignified snort and opened his eyes. 

_Maybe I do have ghost telepathy. Nice._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I had no idea why this one took so long, but then I realized I had written over 4,000 words for one very long sequence instead of jumping around like a squirrel with ADHD between perspectives for a 2,000 word chapter as usual. Don't worry, I'll be back at it next chapter. Ha.
> 
> Anyway, Hinata might've been fine without Suga's interference, but maybe not. One time my little sister fell over the stair railing and she was okay, but it was slightly less than a whole story, and she kinda weighed nothing, hugged the wall on the way down, and fell like a cat. It still gave my mom and me heart attacks. -86/10, do not recommend, please inform your six-year-olds of the dangers of banisters.
> 
> ~~oh. and no, Suga does not have telepathy. don't tell him shhh~~
> 
> what's this? oho... the label on this bottle... silly me, i tried to add vanilla extract, but it turns out this is a bottle of Traumatizing Noya For No Reason. coulda sworn it said vanilla. i'm such a ditz
> 
> i may go back and edit all the honorifics out of this, dang things are more trouble than they're worth. but also they make it easier to tell when someone is Not Referring To Someone Like They Should Be, so maybe not


	6. Chapter 6

Hinata immediately shut his eyes after opening them. Why did the lights have to be so bright? His head hurt, and he felt uneasy for some reason.

“Hinata?”

“Huh?” Hinata slowly cracked one eye open again. “Shimizu-senpai?”

Shimizu was standing by the bed, and she looked worried. Bed? He was in a bed. Opening his other eye, he looked around the room. Someone must have taken him to the nurse’s office, because he didn’t remember coming here.

Shimizu’s expression grew more concerned at his questioning tone. “Yes. I came back to check on you.”

“Oh.” There was a beat of silence as Hinata waited for her to explain, but she didn’t. Normally he wouldn’t have hesitated to let all his questions spill out, but something weird was going on here and he wasn’t sure what exactly his questions were yet. That, and it was no fun talking with a headache. 

Now Shimizu was staring at him more intensely than he was at all comfortable with.

He moved his gaze to the wall, which was a very uninteresting shade of blue, hoping his face didn’t look as red as it felt. What exactly had happened, anyway? He remembered chasing after a stray ball, remembered finding it. He remembered remembering the super cool thing he’d discovered the other day, which was that if he stood on the balcony, he could bump the ball high enough to smack into the ceiling. Well, sometimes, anyway. And then he remembered a brief moment of panic as he realized he’d misjudged the toss in his excitement, but it was already too late and-

_Oh._

_I fell._

That explained the headache, at least. He was glad it wasn’t worse.

Hinata opted for just asking the most important question. “Am I banned from practice this afternoon?”

Shimizu frowned. “Like the nurse said, you’re cleared to go to class and practice, as long as you take it easy and stop immediately if you feel like anything at all is off.”

“Cool!” With that information, Hinata did his best to sound as lively as possible. He was sure the headache would be gone by the afternoon, and as far as classes went, he couldn’t possibly be doing that much worse, so everything would be fine, then. He sat up and tossed off the sheet, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot. 

Something crunched in his hand. 

It was a piece of paper, a bit crumpled, but folded meticulously and labeled in tidy handwriting on the outside. He squinted at one of the kanji. Hinata had never seen that one before. He didn’t know of any kanji with a little heart shape in them. At least the second part made sense: “Open privately,” it said.

What was this, some kind of secret message? Eyes wide, he looked up at Shimizu again. “Did you write this?”

“Hinata.” Shimizu leaned forward. Hinata had never heard her sound so scary. She didn't sound mean, per se, he wasn't sure if she could, but it was... scary. “You wrote it.”

_What?_ That made no sense. Thoughts tumbled through his aching head, whys and hows and whos, but the most prominent was _if I hit my head so hard I lost my memory, I’ll be put on bedrest, and I can’t be put on bedrest!_

“Oh! Oops! I guess I forgot!” He scrambled to shove the offending note into his pocket, his eyes flicking to the clock on the wall. “Crap, I’m gonna be late for class! Um…” He looked back at Shimizu. “Thanks for checking on me.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll walk you to class.”

Hinata blushed again. “Ah, you don’t have to! Then you’ll be late.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She offered him a hand, and he stood up. He wasn’t going to risk arguing.

As promised, the two walked to Hinata’s class together, arriving a couple minutes before the bell rang. Shimizu pulled his teacher aside, and Hinata went to his seat, scrunching his nose. He knew something was wrong here and that the manager was probably wise to let the teacher know in case he passed out in class or something, but he still didn’t love the feeling of being babied.

The note in his pocket made it hard to focus on anything. Hinata realized in hindsight that it had probably been dumb to let someone know about a top secret note, even Shimizu, but he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. It was agony to wait until class started and was well enough underway that no one would pay attention to him, but he managed it.

Quietly, he pulled the note out of his pocket and unfolded it inside his textbook.

_Hinata,_

_Please don’t freak out. This is going to sound crazy, but I owe you an explanation._

_I guess I’ll get straight to the point. This is Sugawara. I’m a ghost, but I’m not dead as far as I’m aware, so don’t worry. This morning, you fell off the balcony and I possessed you to try to keep you from hurting yourself. I think it worked. I would have un-possessed you right away, but I didn’t want to draw too much attention, and I had to write this note. I hope you’ll forgive me._

_You’ll probably have a gap in your memory of a little less than thirty minutes, and I’m really sorry about that. While you were out, I talked to everyone in the gym a little bit and went to the nurse’s office with Shimizu. Nothing crazy happened, but I need to ask a big favor- if anyone mentions anything that happened, can you pretend it was all you for now?_

_You seemed physically fine, but please, please let someone know if you’re not. I need to know exactly how this works and I especially need to make sure you’re all right._

_Oh, and in case you’re worried this is a prank: first, I drew a cat face on your forearm with this pen. Second, remember back in May when you accidentally locked yourself in the club room and I let you out and swore not to tell anyone? I still haven’t, don’t worry._

_If that still isn’t enough, please talk to Daichi at lunch. He has a letter, too, and he can explain a little bit more. He’ll let you know what to do from here. Again, I’m so sorry I couldn’t think of a better way to tell you, and I know it’s unfair to ask you to stay calm about something like this, but please do your best if you can. I’ll take care of this._

_With you in spirit,_

_Suga-san_

Hinata stared at the letter. 

Something in the back of his mind told him _this is impossible, be at least a little skeptical Shoyo, use your head,_ but he shook it away. It made too much sense. The general weirdness of how he’d passed out earlier, the fact that the school nurse apparently hadn’t seen anything that one would expect from a kid who fell off a balcony headfirst, the missing block of time, Shimizu- she’d _seen_ him write the note, right? He pulled up his sleeve. Sure enough, there was an adorable little cat face. And he knew Suga would have kept his promise on the club room thing. 

This was great! Apparently, Suga had been missing since yesterday, and he’d been worried then, of course. He’d done so much for Hinata, right from the start, just like Tanaka. Hinata definitely had the coolest upperclassmen in the country, probably in the world, and Suga was a cornerstone for the whole team. 

But surely he’d be back. He never missed school. It hadn’t really sunk in that he was _gone_ until that morning, when suddenly the familiar shouts of encouragement were conspicuously absent, the captain was clearly in some sort of funk and no one dared bother him about it, and Hinata turned to ask a question he knew Kageyama couldn’t answer and there was no one there.

And now, just as Hinata had been starting to really worry, _this_ happened.

It was freaky. But honestly kinda cool. And mostly just reassuring.

He stared off into space in the general direction of his desk as everything slotted perfectly into place for the first time since he’d woken up. And then more questions came. How had Suga gotten turned into a ghost? Was he ok? Did he look scary now, and would he crawl out of people’s TVs and kill them? Probably not, but who knew? Was he here? If Hinata made faces, would he notice?

The bell rang, and Hinata realized he had absolutely no idea what class had been about. 

* * *

The rest of the morning classes passed in much the same way. There was no way Hinata could sit still and pay attention to things like math problems and Japanese history while this was happening in his real, actual life.

He had to stand in the hallway and bounce on his toes in between classes to keep from running straight into the captain’s third-year classroom. The letter had specifically said to meet up at lunch, and besides, someone would probably come after him and haul him back to his own classroom like an obstinate sack of potatoes before he was done talking. 

So, the hallway it was, swinging his arms and occasionally muttering something under his breath to Suga in case he was nearby and could hear him. A girl from his class (who was NOT taller than him if he stood on his tiptoes) caught one of these mutterings and asked him if he was all right, to which he responded in the affirmative a little too eagerly. She nodded pacifyingly and slowly retreated back into the classroom as if she were afraid he might suddenly bite her face off.

At long last, however, the lunch bell rang, and Hinata, who had packed his bag and gotten into position five minutes earlier, was off like a shot.

* * *

Daichi put away the last of the equipment. Everyone else had finished their tasks and been sent to class under strict orders not to bother Hinata. Shimizu would make sure he was all right, and much as Daichi knew everyone wanted to see for themselves, nine rowdy highschool boys running around ten minutes before school started was a recipe for disaster. 

Apparently, Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei had thought the same. They didn’t typically come to morning practices, but they had considered today worthy of exception, and the incident with Hinata had made Daichi doubly grateful for the presence of adults.

And it wasn’t even 8:30 yet.

This was going to be a long day.

Daichi sat down on the floor of the gym storage closet. He folded his arms on his knees, and rested his head on his arms. He could afford a few minutes of peace. He wouldn’t get in trouble for being late to class once.

But he couldn’t have nice things, could he.

The door creaked open.

_Crap. I thought I was the last one here._

He scrambled to stand up and pretend he hadn’t just been sulking on the floor, but Asahi poked his head in and held up his hand. “It’s ok! It’s just me.”

Daichi lowered himself from his awkward half-standing position and sat cross legged instead. “Hey.”

Asahi nodded in response, entering the closet.

“Did you forget something?”

“No.” Asahi sat on the floor next to Daichi.

He wanted to grumble about his five minutes of alone time, but he didn’t have the heart, so the two of them stared ahead in silence. And if he was really being honest with himself, it wasn't so bad to not be alone right now. Daichi felt an arm drape across his shoulders in a one-armed hug. He looked up in mild surprise, but Asahi was still intent on the floorboards. They sat like that for a minute, Asahi offering his silent support and Daichi accepting it.

He’d felt like he had to play the whole thing off, act like he was fine. Everyone needed him to. He knew Suga’s mom must be worried enough already, and he couldn’t drag any of his teammates down. They always followed him, his verbal commands most of the time, sure, but also his nonverbal cues. He knew it, and that knowledge could be exhausting sometimes.

And he realized, with a little bit of shame, that he’d felt the same way about Asahi. He’d been subconsciously afraid of setting him off, afraid that his mushy little heart would dissolve completely at one of his closest friends disappearing and the other one being so obviously upset about it. Despite the fact that they were nearly exactly the same age, he felt responsible for him, in a way. What a twist of irony that he of all people had ended up treating him too softly.

But no, the friend at his side, the arm around his shoulders was a physical reminder that Asahi’s heart was less glass and more silly putty. Easily moved, easily flattened, but impossible to shatter. Daichi could be there for him, but Asahi could also be there for Daichi.

If the two of them had to wipe a couple tears on their sleeves and showed up to class a little late and red-eyed, nobody commented on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HGH where do chapter breaks even gooooo, I debated for so long whether to tack that last scene onto the end of this one because it was gonna be really short otherwise, or leave it for the next one
> 
> also i guess Furudate apparently said Suga was probably always making up bad puns in his head. bada bing bada boom, that's canon in my book. XD 
> 
> once again, I treasure any and all comments and feedback, and once again again, thank you just for taking the time to read this! have a flippin' sick week m'dudes


	7. Chapter 7

The school bell rang. It was the end of first period. Daichi put away his book and slid his notes into his bag. He was thirsty from volleyball practice, maybe he should go get a drink before the next class began.

But something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He whipped around in his seat to face the desks behind him. The girl who sat directly behind him was still scribbling something in her notes, but looked up at the sudden motion with a small smile, cocking her head curiously.

No. His brain was playing tricks on him. Behind her, Suga’s desk was still empty, like it had been all morning. Daichi had not seen him sitting there, of course.  _ I really am going crazy,  _ he thought.

“Sawamura-kun,” said his classmate, waving her hand in front of his face. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Huh?” Daichi realized he’d been staring. “Ah, sorry, Yoshio-kun. I thought I saw… a spider.”

Yoshio snickered, far more amused than the situation called for, and Daichi turned to sit the correct way in his seat, suddenly glad that Suga wasn’t there to make fun of him for that.

After a few moments of unnecessarily shuffling some papers around so it wouldn’t look like he was running away, he got up and stepped out into the hallway. A few students were standing outside their classrooms chatting, and he had to wait for a couple other people to finish using the drinking fountain. On the way back, he spotted someone familiar standing outside his classroom.

“Shimizu, hey!”

“Sawamura.”

Why did Daichi feel like he was in trouble? He stopped, a little taken aback. Sure, Shimizu was a woman of relatively few words, but her lips were pressed tightly together and there was an intensity in her eyes he wasn’t used to. “What’s wrong? Is Hinata okay?”

“He seemed unhurt, and the nurse didn’t think there was anything wrong with him.” Shimizu reached into her pocket. “I’m here because he asked me to bring you this.”

Daichi took the folded piece of paper she handed him. There was one word written on the front: “Daichi”.

There were several things wrong with that alone. First, Hinata never called him by his given name. Daichi didn’t think he’d be able to if he tried. Second, the handwriting was familiar, and not because it was Hinata’s. It seemed like the stream of weird occurrences he’d been floating through for the past couple of days wasn’t going to let up any time soon. Eyes wide, he looked up at Shimizu. 

She opened her mouth as if to speak, hesitated, and then seemed to arrive at a decision. “We need to talk at lunch. Something’s wrong here.”

Daichi couldn’t agree more, but as reassuring as it was to know it wasn’t all in his head, Shimizu noticing meant something was really wrong. At least madness would only be a him problem. Reality could be dangerous. He nodded firmly. “All right. Let’s meet here, then. We can move somewhere more private if we have to.”

Shimizu nodded back, and hurried down the hallway to her classroom.

Daichi went back to his seat, contemplating the note. Upon closer inspection, it really did look uncannily like Suga’s handwriting. Maybe Hinata had found it somewhere and decided to pass it on to him. It could be a note from last week, something inconsequential that got left in the club room or something.

In the end, he put off opening it until after the next class. He hadn’t wanted to distract himself by reading it, but not knowing wasn’t doing him any favors either, so it seemed like a good compromise.

It was not.

The note claimed it was from Suga. It began by saying Suga was a ghost, then explained how he’d possessed Daichi yesterday and then Hinata this morning in order to write it. It was played entirely too straight for something that was trying to flip Daichi’s world on its head, because it had to be a prank. He didn’t know how it could be anything else. 

Worse, it was probably a prank by Suga himself. How could someone fake his handwriting perfectly for so long? Who else knew that in their first year, he’d stayed at Suga’s house and had been caught sleepwalking in the bathroom trying to put toothpaste on a comb? Who else would sign off a letter with, “Respectrefully yours, Suga”?

But that didn’t make sense either. Bad as his puns were, Suga would never worry everyone like this and then skip school on top of it just for a prank. And who had seen what happened yesterday besides him, Asahi, and a stranger? Nothing was adding up.

The last paragraph of the note said Hinata would come meet him at lunch, and that it was up to Daichi who to tell about this and how much. That was good, at least. Maybe Hinata would have some insight on where the note came from, and the two of them and Shimizu could piece together some kind of explanation.

* * *

Suga had had a breakthrough with his ghost powers.

Despite everything going on, he’d been able to pay a fair amount of attention to classes, but everything going on was still simmering on the back burner of his head, and eventually, an idea had risen to the surface.

He’d been thinking about it all wrong. This morning, although he still had misgivings about the ethicality of it, he’d intentionally possessed someone for the first time. Levitating objects clearly wasn’t going to work, but maybe… 

Inside his desk was a pencil, some colored pens, blank papers, and a couple books. Suga reached for the pencil, and his hand phased through it as usual, and began to phase through the desk beneath it. He pulled his hand away and pressed his fist against his mouth in thought. 

Suga closed his eyes, revisiting the feeling of possessing a person. He hadn’t really had to _ try  _ either time. It had been almost magnetic, like his soul knew he belonged in a body and was all too ready to connect to whichever one occupied the same physical space. It was getting out that had taken effort on his part. Each time he’d left had made him miss being corporeal more, but at the same time, it was tainted by a feeling of wrongness and the knowledge that whenever he was back, one of his friends was missing.

He shivered. Maybe he shouldn’t dwell on that for too long.

Shoving everything else aside, he once again reached out for the pencil, aligning it with his index finger, focused only on the feeling of being one with something physical. The pencil  _ was _ his finger now, he told himself, feeling a little silly, but willing it to be so anyway. With surprise, he watched as the overlap where his slightly faded finger was wider than the pencil went away, and carefully, he tried to move it.

The pencil moved.

Suga let out a short, disbelieving laugh. This was it! He was interacting with something and not hurting anyone! He moved the pencil in a circle in the compartment under the desk. With this, he could communicate with his teammates, let his family know he was okay, find a solution-

The pencil dropped.

It didn’t matter. He’d done it, and now he just needed practice.

* * *

Two periods later, the bell finally rang, dismissing the students for lunch. Suga watched as Daichi sorted through his bag, putting away his notes and rearranging things. He had been right about coming to school being a good idea. Not only had he been able to stop something bad from potentially happening to Hinata, it really had helped him clear his head and think better.

Of course, Shimizu knew more than he’d planned on her knowing this early. He’d hoped Hinata would be a bit more discreet about the note, but there was enough off without it that he supposed anyone would be suspicious anyway. Suga had stuck by them until Hinata was settled in his class, and then had gone to his own classroom, where he’d stayed until now.

There had been one point where Daichi had turned around, and Suga could have sworn he was staring directly at him with recognition in his eyes, but it had faded quickly. And then Yoshio had called Daichi out, and he’d blurted out an extroardinarily dumb excuse. Suga took advantage of the fact that no one could hear him and didn’t bother stifling his laughter.

  
  


Daichi had barely finished putting his things away before Hinata flew into the room, flushed and out of breath.

“Captain! Did you get a letter too?” Hinata asked, far too loudly. He leaned on Daichi’s desk across from where Suga was standing, eagerly awaiting an answer.

Daichi shushed him. “Not here. We’ll talk about it in a minute. Shimizu-”

Another voice cut in. “Ooh, secret business, huh? Sounds exciting!”

It was Yoshio again. She was really on a mission to make Daichi her business today, wasn’t she? Suga stepped aside to give her more room, just in case, and Daichi turned towards her, looking beyond done. 

“Yeah, well,” Daichi smiled, dangerously polite, “unfortunately secrets aren’t always very exciting.”

Yoshio laughed, somehow apparently impervious to his aura. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll leave you boys to it, then.” She winked at them knowingly and walked lightly away.

Suga put his hands on his hips, watching her go. She’d only joined their class this year, and hadn’t really interacted with them outside of class, but seemed nice enough. He had no idea what she thought was going on, but whatever it was, he was pretty sure she was wrong. Or maybe she was flirting. Who knew with her, honestly. 

Hinata winced. “Sorry,” he stage whispered to Daichi.

Daichi sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I was just about to say Shimizu is going to join us, and then we’re going outside.  _ That _ just now settled it,” he said, looking pointedly at the door Yoshio had just flounced out of.

Hinata pulled Yoshio’s vacated chair over, and the two made quiet conversation, pointedly avoiding the various elephants in the room, until Shimizu entered. They stood to greet her, and then everyone followed Daichi out of the room and down the hall, Suga floating horizontally above everyone’s heads to avoid running into people.

They all made their way out to the edge of the schoolyard and sat in a sunny spot on the grass. It must have warmed up a bit since that morning, because Suga couldn’t see anyone’s breath and Hinata’s jacket was unzipped. 

Hinata was the first to speak. “Suga-san, are you here? Give us a sign!” He looked around hopefully.

“What?” Shimizu stopped unwrapping her lunch.

“I just wanted to check. I mean, he probably can’t do much or he would have told us sooner, but maybe he has floaty ghost hands or something!”

Shimizu looked at Daichi for clarification.

“Shimizu, you didn’t get a letter, did you?” Daichi asked.

“No, but I think the sooner you two explain what was in yours, the better.”

Daichi reached into his bag and fished out the note. “Here,” he said, handing it to Shimizu, “I should probably just let you read it. Hinata, do you have yours?”

“Yep!” Hinata pulled the paper out and handed it over.

Daichi skimmed Hinata’s note, then verbally summarized what was in his while Shimizu read both. Suga noticed that he gave an extremely condensed version of yesterday’s events, and left out the sleepwalking bit altogether.

“This is…” Shimizu trailed off, eyes still fixed on the notes, brow furrowed.

“I know,” Daichi said. “It can’t be real. But we still have to get to the bottom of this, it’s related to Suga’s disappearance.”

Hinata’s face fell. “You think it’s a prank?”

“What else could it be? I really don’t think ghosts-”

“Shh!” Hinata leaned forward earnestly. “That’s going to get them mad at you!”

Daichi was quiet for a moment, considering. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m not going to debate the existence of ghosts right now. I guess there are things in this world we can’t explain. But when there’s a real person missing, we have to at least consider the more likely options  _ before _ we jump to ghosts.”

“All right,” Hinata agreed reluctantly.

This could be going better. Suga had expected this part to be somewhat difficult, but he thought he’d been convincing enough in the letter to at least plant the possibility in Daichi’s stubborn head.

He stuck his hand through Daichi’s back. “Logical as always, captain, but this ghost would appreciate you considering him first.” 

Daichi visibly shivered, and Hinata’s eyes lit up again when he noticed. “Did you get chills? I told you the ghosts would get mad!”

“It’s November!” Daichi defended himself.

Suga did it again for good measure.

Daichi pointedly ignored him this time. That was no fun.

“Anyway, we need to figure out where these letters came from. Hinata, where did you find them?”

Hinata cocked his head. “I only found mine. I didn’t even know you had one until I read it.”

“Sugawara wrote them,” said Shimizu decisively, finally looking up.

Daichi and Hinata turned towards her in surprise.

“... _ What? _ ”

“Hinata, do you remember anything after you fell?” she asked

“Well… no. The first thing I remember is waking up in the nurse’s office.”

Daichi looked like he was about to argue something, but Shimizu wasn’t done yet.

“Do you remember writing these?”

“No…”

“Do you remember walking to the office with me?”

“Alone!?”

“Do you remember talking to the vice principal on the way?”

Hinata was panicking now. “Did I?”

“No.” Shimizu made eye contact with Daichi. “He really doesn’t remember.”

“So maybe he did hit his head. I’m sorry, Shimizu, but this makes it sound worse, not better.”

“I watched Hinata write those notes,” Shimizu said. “I sat in the nurse’s office and watched. Not only that, he wasn’t acting like himself the whole time. Not until he went unconscious and woke up again. That’s why I wanted to talk, Sawamura. I wasn’t expecting this, of course,” she held up the papers, “but it makes sense.”

Bless Shimizu. She was on Suga’s side, and to think he’d been worried about her knowing.

Daichi’s voice rose slightly. “He went unconscious  _ again? _ ”

Shimizu nodded. “Don’t worry, I told his teacher about it. He’s had someone watching him all morning.”

“Creepy,” Hinata mumbled. 

Daichi shook his head. “Why are you so sure it’s Sugawara, though?” he asked, swayed by Shimizu’s confidence, but still unwilling to change his mind so quickly.

“No offense, Hinata,” Shimizu looked at him apologetically, “but you seemed so casual when we went to the nurse.”

Hinata put his face in his hands.

“He called by your first name,” she told Daichi. “And he did something to his hair… I didn’t think about it at the time, but he parted it in the middle, exactly like Sugawara does.” Shimizu paused to take a breath. “Everything I’ve seen, the letter, the similarities between what happened to you and Hinata… I think these letters have the best explanation.”

And there it was. Time for Suga to reveal himself.

He had planned on letting them figure out as much as they could before stepping in to lessen the shock as much as possible, but he had pictured this taking place somewhere more convenient. There wasn’t a whole lot he could do out here, although at least it was fairly empty, so he wouldn’t have to worry about someone else seeing something they shouldn’t.

Suga hadn’t practiced much. There hadn’t been much time, and if he had wanted to move anything that wasn’t already out of sight inside his desk, he would have had to go somewhere else and miss class, but he felt like he’d at least gotten better at maintaining his hold on objects. He considered for a second, and then stuck part of his arm into Hinata’s untouched bento and lifted it off the ground.

Hinata peeked out from behind his hands, and his one visible eye widened when he saw it. Daichi and Shimizu noticed too, and, slack-jawed, they stared usefully at the lunchbox suspended by Hinata’s head.

“Oh come on, guys,” Suga joked. “Isn’t this at least a little impressive?”

As he spoke, he heard a low moaning noise. He looked around for the source, but it had stopped as soon as he finished talking.

“...Suga?” Daichi asked quietly.

Suga waved his arm up and down, making the lunchbox bob in the air.

Hinata yelped and scrambled away from it.

Slowly, Daichi got to his feet and went over to the floating bento. He bent over and passed his hand underneath it, then above it. “Suga, are you okay?” he asked it.

Suga sighed. Of course it made sense to talk to the thing you could see, but he was not a bento, thank you very much, he was only holding it. He moved it up and down again.

“I mean, as okay as you can be like this.” Daichi began to circle around, walking directly toward Suga’s incorporeal body, eyes still fixed on the box in disbelief.

That was too close for comfort. Suga inadvertently let out a yelp and quickly stepped out of his way.

A horrible shriek echoed through the schoolyard and off the school building. 

Suga, Shimizu, Hinata, and Daichi all froze in terror, both metaphorically and literally.

Suga’s grip on the bento slipped, and it dropped to the ground as he slapped his other hand over his mouth.  _ Was that me? _

The others seemed to recover from their shock simultaneously and closed in on the lunchbox. Shimizu reached for it, but seemed hesitant to touch it. 

“Did you break him?” Hinata asked, voice wavering.

Daichi’s face grew even more horrified.

Suga had to do something. He touched the lunchbox again, but thought better of it. It seemed like they thought it was him in some way, so maybe if he picked something else, they would understand he had nothing to do with the objects. He reached into Daichi’s bag, merged his hand with a notebook, and pulled it out, waving it in front of the three to get their attention.

They were still too focused on the bento. Hinata poked it gently and immediately snatched his hand back like he was afraid it would bite him.

Suga didn’t want to spook them if this was really how it worked, but… “Guys, I’m over here now.”

Sure enough, he heard the moaning again, and his three friends looked in the direction of the floating notebook. 

“Oh, thank goodness,” Shimizu said under her breath.

“Suga, that’s really creepy,” Daichi said. “Use your words.”

“I’m trying!” Suga retorted.

Hinata made a face at the noise. “Maybe he can’t.”

Suga waved the notebook up and down to indicate he was correct.

Daichi settled himself back on the grass, not taking his eyes off the notebook. “We have a lot of things to talk about. Can you do… that… with a pencil?”

That was one of the things he’d been able to try in class, so yes. Suga waved the notebook again. He could feel his connection to it slipping, but there was one more thing he needed to take care of before he put it down. He lowered it and used it to poke Hinata’s bento towards him. Daichi was right about needing to communicate in more detail, but lunch break would only last so long, and everyone had been up early and active this morning. They needed to eat.

“Lunch?” asked Daichi.

Suga signalled yes, and let the notebook go.

“I agree. Shimizu, Hinata, you go ahead while Suga and I talk.”

“No! All of you, idiot.” Suga ran his hand through Daichi’s arm, but he didn’t respond aside from a slight shiver. Suga rolled his eyes and reached into Daichi’s open bag again, pulling out his bento and dropping it on the ground in front of him.

Daichi looked at it in surprise, and then chuckled. “Okay, fine, I get the message. Lunch first, but let’s make it quick.”

Suga peeked into Daichi’s bag again, looking for something to write with as his three friends hurriedly got started on their lunch. 

It was amazing how much the captain’s attitude had changed in the last couple minutes. All morning, he’d been staring into space like he had a personal vendetta against the air for burning down his village or something, although knowing him, he probably thought he’d been keeping it together pretty well. His poker face was only good for actual poker, it seemed. Now, Suga still wouldn’t call him relaxed, but the edgy uncertainty was gone. And whether it was consciously or unconsciously, Hinata and Shimizu had picked up on it and were calmer as well.

“Um…” A voice broke Suga’s stream of thought. Hinata had paused with his first bite halfway to his mouth, and was eyeing it uncertainly. 

Hinata looked up at Daichi. “Is this still… safe to eat? Since Suga-san was kind of… in it.”

The three third-years broke into laughter. 

Hinata glanced from Shimizu to Daichi, searching their faces, trying to find the humor in it. “Hey, isn’t that a reasonable question?” 

Shimizu choked on her mouthful of rice a bit, and Daichi set his food down, trying to recover.

“I’m sorry, Hinata. It is. Suga, give us a sign if it’s no good.”

Suga did nothing besides chuckle sporadically, and after waiting a few seconds, Hinata picked up his food and began eating eagerly, quickly getting over his upperclassmen’s eccentricities. 

He was absolutely right, Suga thought. It really wasn’t funny. 

But they knew. Somehow, he was really a ghost and had possessed a lunchbox, and that was ridiculous, but they’d all seen it. It was weird, but it was reality. He was connected to his friends again, he wasn’t alone, and they knew he was there and okay. Things were falling into place. The air was clearing, and that was reason enough to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ends chapter with everyone laughing like an episode of Paw Patrol or something*
> 
> I didn't mean for Hinata to be here this much, but he protagonisted his way in when I wasn't paying attention. Also I had homemade smoked salmon for breakfast (my elderly neighbors gave it to me because I helped move a treadmill), it was amazing, and I'm citing the fact that I'm still riding that high as the reason I'm posting this chapter when it could still be improved upon.
> 
> once again, thank you for reading and all the best until the next chapter! (after that, I will send a curse upon you)

**Author's Note:**

> END NOTE AS OF 02/11/2021:
> 
> I have not dropped this, and do intend to finish it! Problem is, I decided I care about it a little more than I thought I did and want to spend some more time working out details (and also important plot elements I should have settled BEFORE writing but didn't because I'm 85% sure I have ADHD and why would I plan things when I can have the instant gratification of posting). School and work are also kicking my butt as per usual. Hopefully, though, having it written ahead a bit more will mean the chapters come out faster when I start posting them again. So, yeah, hiatus. That's where we stand for now. XD


End file.
